Currently, selective call receivers (pagers) offer a memory full indication feature for indicating to the user that there is insufficient space in memory for storing a new message, such as an alphanumeric message. Memory full indication occurs when a fixed number of characters remain in the device or when a new message is guaranteed to delete an existing message. In devices heretofore known, the memory full threshold is fixed at manufacture. With reference to FIG. 5, often, a particular user receives messages in step 100 which are much shorter than the length of messages on which the preset memory full condition is triggered. Consequently, a memory full indication will be made prematurely in step 102 and a stored message is unnecessarily deleted in step 104 before the new message is stored in step 106.
Other users of the same selective call receiver model find that the preset memory full threshold is satisfactory. However, the fixed memory full threshold does not optimize the use of the memory of the selective call receiver because the length of the received messages vary.
Thus, it is desirable to provide for an adjustable and/or adaptive memory full threshold to avoid unnecessary deletion of previously received and stored messages.